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PAUL ORUDE, BAUCHI
The Collation Officer for Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area of Bauchi State, Dominion Anosike, has narrated how she escaped being killed after the violence that erupted in her area in the course of conducting the governorship and state Assembly elections.
Narrating her ordeal at the INEC Collation Centre at INEC headquarters in Bauchi on Sunday afternoon, Anosike stated that electoral materials were carted away by hoodlums who intimidated and harassed her and her electoral officer until the police came to her rescue.
Anosike disclosed this when it was her turn to announce results for her local government as the Presiding Officer for the state. Professor Mohammed Kyari, the Resident Electoral Commissioner for the state, Ibrahim Abdullahi, election observers, journalists and party agents were left in shock.
She said: “There was violence and I was forced to announce results under duress. We had to use photocopies of other forms to collate results because we were forced under duress to announce the results.
“My electoral officer and the myself were collating results and about 11pm on Saturday we had collated for six wards. Around 6:00 am hoodlums came and started throwing stones. They were violent and insisted that we must announce the results but l managed to escape.”
Anosike stated that when the confusion seemed to have reduced, she collated the remaining results surrounded by “hoodlums and for the sake of our lives we had to announce the results and gave them copies. There was violence.”
She however, stated that despite what happened in the local government, “the result of the election is valid but there was much pressure.”
She said that the results from Tafawa Balewa was valid and genuine, a development that led the Returning Officer, Professor Kyari to chide her saying, if she knew that what happened did not invalidate the results from Tafawa Balewa, she should have spared them the drama.
Kyari therefore directed Anosike and the Electoral Officer for the local government to step aside while results from other local governments were being announced as they would be called upon later.
Meanwhile, results so far announced for 14 local government areas, showed that the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) and the main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) were in a right race.
The local government so far announced are Kirfi, Bogoro, Dass, Giade, Warji, Misau, Jam’are, Zaki, Dambam, Gamawa, Shira, ltas-Gadau and Katagum with APC leading by a slim margin as results for six local government areas are being awaited.
